Playin’ The Edge

I came clean with my yoga class the other day.  I confessed.  Even though I preach the good word about listening to one’s body and taking care of oneself, I hadn’t been.

I have had a sore shoulder for a year and finally went to a health practitioner about it.  How’s that for taking care of myself?

It was my baby carrying side and when my baby was a year and a bouncy 20 pounds we celebrated my other son’s birthday by going on Theodore Tugboat.  It was a great trip around the harbour and i learned a lot about Halifax but I also carried Leo on that side for the whole time.  By the end of the day i thought my arm was going to fall off and did my shoulder ever hurt.

And it really hasn’t stopped hurting.  Sometimes its more cranky than others and then I’d baby it for a while, but it was always low level sore.

I called an osteopath once and when his office didn’t return my call in 4 days i got cheesed off and didn’t make an appointment when they finally called (i must have been more cranky than my shoulder was that day).

Finally, the other morning in the shower, i pulled myself up by my imaginary bootstraps and thought, Fox, for gods sake, get someone to look at your shoulder.

My chiropractor does that bioflex laser thing and I’ve been going for a few sessions and it’s fixing up quite nicely.  She also gave me exercises to do and so after confessing to my yoga class i asked them to do my exercises with me.

My BFF and i have been talking about this ache ‘n pain thing.  She has a sore heel that’s getting in the way of her running, which makes her unhappy because she can’t run and running makes her happy.  And we talked about how our aches and pains make us so darn cranky, when really, that’s life right?

There’s nowhere that says our bodies will be healthy and painfree for the time we meander this earth.  In fact its the opposite, we will, guaranteed, spend time sick, injured and in pain.  That’s just reality.

And i think that’s where i got to with my shoulder, i would feel the pinch and i would feel all unhappy about it and wish it were different but then not actually do anything about it.

I finally just got over myself.  Deal with it and just move on.

Our bodies can be such good teachers.  And our window for experiencing the world.  Scott Bea, a psychologist says that all fun comes through the physical, “No one ever says, ‘I had a fun time thinking last night.’”

It reminds me of something i read from Pema Chodron’s book, “The Wisdom of No Escape”

It is helpful to realize tht being here, sitting in meditation, doing simple everyday things like working, walking outisde, talking with people, eating, using the toilet, is actually all that we need to be fully awake, fully alive, fully human.  It’s also helpful to realize that this body that we have, this very body that’s sitting here right now in this room, this very body that perhaps aches, and this mind that we have at this very moment, are exactly what we need to be fully human, fully awake, and fully alive.  Furthermore, the emotions that we have right now, the negativity and the positivity, are what we actually need. It is just as if we looked around to find out what would be the greatest wealth that we could possibly possess in order to lead a decent, good, completely fulfilling, energetic, inspired life, and found it all right here.

I’ve been having a tough time lately keeping all the balls in the air.  Some days it feels like chainsaws, some days, flaming torches.  I had a sleepover at a friend’s place last weekend and it was so nice to escape my life for 24 hours.

She lives in a straw bale house on a lake and it’s serene and beautiful and quiet there.  Just her and her two dogs and cat.  Pretty different from my noisy chaotic city life.

We played the Transformation game and i really focused on – how i can find more Balance in my life.  I know Balance is a moving target and as soon as you find it the pendulum swings and you’re out of whack somewhere again.  And that’s OK.

But enough Balance that i’m getting the quality things in life, even if it’s in small doses, instead of just more laundry.  A place where I’m doing the important things, The Wanna Do’s as well as the other important things, The Gotta Do’s.

The Wanna Do’s are the things that make me feel like I have something useful to offer my yoga classes.  Or a run on a Sunday morning to collect my thoughts.  Or take my kids to the park and not just wish they’d get out of my way so i can Get Things Done.

On Sunday after the sleepover I drove home feeling great.  I felt inspired and refreshed.  I felt like it was all possible.

And then I arrived home.  I walked in the door, through the house and immediately felt overwhelmed.

I walked past plants that were begging for water.  Walked over dust bunnies sticking their tongues out at me.  Overflowing laundry baskets. I felt completely and totally overwhelmed.  I was immobilized.  None of it felt possible.  I laid on the bed and felt sorry for myself.

And then I got my ass off the bed and got a few things done.  And then i felt like things were manageable again.

But looking back at it, i don’t want my mood to shift based on the number of crossed off items on my to-do list.  I’m a total accomplishment junkie but i don’t want to be.  I just want to feel good.  Regardless.

I’m getting better at realizing there will always be items on my to-do list.  I used to be able to do it all, now it just ain’t happening and that’s my life right now.  It’s ok.

But I want to go a step further and feel good regardless.

I heard an interview with Jill Bolte Taylor. She’s the one who did the amazing TED talk.  And she said in Oprah’s interview that as a brain scientist she can tell us that the chattery part of our brain that obsesses over to-do lists is a bunch of neurons the size of a peanut.  Those thoughts that were driving me bananas are the product of a few cells.  And since i can’t hold two thoughts in my head at once – i can choose.

I can decide to wallow in my overwhelm, or i can choose another thought.  I have control over making friends with both my Gotta Do list and my Wanna Do list.  And make sure i get some of both in my day.  I can stay in the present moment and enjoy what i’m doing rather than wish i was doing something else.  And i can feel good regardless of any list.

I was talking to a friend about the pain of taking things personally.  She and her husband are working to improve their relationship and talk meaningfully about things.

As a result, he told her what he really thought about her and their homelife and it wasn’t easy to hear.  It cut her to the core.

It’s a tough one. I find myself responding that way too, all time.  Getting so damn hurt by the things that happen.  It made me think about how to get out of it.  How do you get to the place where you can move on?

Here’s what I came up with.  Dive In.  The first thing to do is dive into it.  Does it bother you because it’s dead wrong or right?  Be brutally honest.  And kind.

Is it something you’d like to change?  How does it relate to in-grown patterns?  Is the behavior a pattern itself?  Or do you find yourself reacting out of a long-standing pattern?  If so, what alternative action could you choose here?  Maybe use the opportunity to try it out.  Or at least notice what it might be, for next time.

Don’t Let Go, Yet.  It’s a great time to really feel the emotion.  We’re always so quick to say – I’m letting this go!  Because yeah, emotions can be uncomfortable, they can be icky.  But the only way out is through.  Feel all the ickiness that comes up.  Don’t worry, they can’t hurt you.  Keep breathing.  Curl up under a blanket with some kleenex. Let the little five year old inside holler, “it’s not fair!”.  Tell yourself, “It’s not my fault.” Allow all of it.

Do a Victim Check.  Check into whether you’re in victim mode.  It’s such an easy one to drop into, but really, *nothing* useful happens when you’re there. As long as we’re blaming another person we won’t take any useful action, other than maybe slashing the person’s tires.  Not the best choice.

The best way I’ve found to deal with victim is to step into the other person’s space.

Get Empathetic. My friend did this really well.  She wanted to dive into what her husband was saying because she loves him.  She’s invested in the relationship.  She reminded herself of that.  She worked on seeing the situation from his viewpoint.  She tried to step into his shoes.

Forgiven, Forgiven. I’ve also found that when i feel some leftover ickiness i forgive the person.   It’s not about right or wrong or who’s justified, when I’m ready to move past all that I find i just need to let them off the hook.

I use Tara Brach‘s suggestion of saying to myself, “forgiven, forgiven, forgiven”.  I forgive them for being honest and noticing the lousy parts of me.  I forgive myself for having parts that I’d like to change.  I forgive my family history. I forgive the sky for being dark and rainy.  I forgive anything I can think of until I feel clearer and cleaner.

Because once you clear that stuff out and feel every bit of it, then you can consider the next stage.

Look Again.  Once you’ve experienced all the emotion, then you can look at the situation with a bit more distance.  You can look at it a bit more clinically, checking the situation for solutions, because once you’re through the emotions then you’re past react-mode.  You can move into act mode.

Reframe The Situation. How can you look at the situation and say, “yeah i need to work on this area, no biggie, everyone has challenges and this one is mine”.  How can you get to, “yeah this is tough situation, now I need to deal.”  How can you get past the freaking out and move onto a Meh,-it’s-just-life view?

You know?  What will it take it be OK with this?  How can you get to the stage where you’re just ready to deal?  If you’re not ready for the next stage, maybe you need to go back and repeat the previous steps.  It’s ok, we all deal with stuff in different ways and with different timing.

Find Your Inner Warrior.  The last stage is feeling your skin thicken.  Now you can find your inner warrior.  You’re moving on, you’ve reframed the situation, you’ve decided on your action – now is the time to feel your strength.  Not shutting down, but finding your quiet, inner knowing.  Your inner toughness.

This is the part of the process where you take the pain of the situation and turn it around.  You’ve taken it personally but now you know it intimately.  You’ve dug in, you understand it, and you own it, whatever the outcome is.

I heard this poem recently and loved the bit about “what batters you becomes your strength”.  Here it is:

I was listening to Tara Brach’s podcast called Realizing True Wellbeing.  She says that the Positive Psychologists have found we have a Happiness Set Point.  Whether you win the lottery or lose an arm, a few months later you’ll be pretty much back at the level of happiness you were at before the event.

They’ve also concluded that we’re hardwired to see the glass half empty.  If you think about our cave forebearers – who was most likely to survive?  The dude in a hammock enjoying a beverage in a coconut shell Gilligan-style?  Or the dude tucking food away for the winter and keeping an eye out for the saber-tooth tiger?

The challenge is that we may have inherited the genes that keep us watching for the saber tooth tiger, but that isn’t our reality.  We have it pretty good.  But how we really make things lousy for ourselves is that when we notice what’s lacking we then have the second thought, “and therefore I suck”.  Right?  We make it worse by being hard on ourselves.

Being a Type A person I have a really hard time with seeing things undone, unfinished or unaddressed.  But frankly with all the stuff on my plate, I need to accept it will likely *always* be like that.  It doesn’t mean that I suck.  It means I just haven’t gotten around to that one yet.

We may be hardwired to see the glass half empty, to focus on what’s missing or what’s not right or perfect.  But we can train ourselves and practice being in a happier state.  We can focus on the part of the cup that’s half full, and we can go easy on ourselves.

Here are a few sure fire ways to help:

1.  Name It. Give that cranky judgemental, nothing-is-ever-good-enough voice in your a head a name.  Like Aunt Mildred, or Chrissandra The Crank, or whatever name resonates with you so that you can tell him or her where to go when you hear it.  The voice probably has it’s good sides sometimes.  It gets your butt out of bed in the morning when you’re tired and need to go to work.  It provides another point of view when you want to eat cookies for dinner.  But the key is to recognize when it’s not useful and tell it where to go.

It also helps to name the emotion.  “Wow I’m frustrated right now” can help you get just a teeny bit of distance from it so that you’re not just wallowing it and being hard on yourself for it and making things worse.

2. Get Grateful. When you find yourself going through your laundry list of what sucks about yourself and your life, sometimes you need to take drastic measures.  Like think about something else.  Like all the things that make up the part of your cup that’s half full.  And I start right from scratch, the fact that i have clothes and a roof over my head and don’t have to worry about the militia pounding down the door in the night.  It really helps put things in perspective.

Yesterday my kids were being nuts at one time or another and it was absolutely exhausting.  And at one point I turned to Honeybunny and said, aren’t we so lucky that our kids are healthy?  There are parents that spend days in the hospital with their children and would give anything for them to be healthy.  And here we are, our kids have enough wherewithall to drive us bananas.  We’re so lucky.  Why fight it right? What a gift that momentary insight was.

3. Take a Nap or Find Your Happy Place. Here’s how many of my Saturday a.m..s go.  I’m wiped from the busy week, I get up in the a.m. and have a to-do list of about 15,000 items.  I start to pick them off.  And say I get three things done, I’m disgruntled that it’s not 6 things.  You know?  Even though I’m getting things done I’m thinking, there’s no way i’m going to get everything done this weekend, there’s too much, this sucks, I suck.  Then the part of the day comes when i can take a nap.  After I wake up I stretch and yawn and feel kinda lazy and you know – I don’t care about the to-do list.

All of a sudden, it’s no big deal.  I notice what i’ve gotten accomplished so far and i think, huh, not bad, the other stuff will come around, and if it doens’t it couldn’t have been too important.  One nap, one total attitude shift.  I’ve also seen the same attitude shift after a nice walk.  It seems counter-intuitive that if i’m feeling cranky about not getting things done that i should stop doing and nap.  Or walk.  But there it is.

Because the thing I’ve realized is that  it’s not about the to-do list.  It’s about the cranky and being hard on myself.  So i need to deal with my attitude and figure out how to improve it.  Because then the whole world looks better.  I’m happier.

A friend just sent me this article on saving things called Rotten Happiness.  My friend could relate.  She had saved a bottle of expensive wine for years, looking for the perfect time to open it.

Finally she opened it and it had turned to vinegar, she had to dump it out.  She was so cheesed off that she didn’t just drink the damn thing when a “good enough” time came along.

I can relate to it too.  I can hoard things.  I understand it’s a Taurean trait.  Save things for a rainy day and all that.  But a couple things I do do, is wear the clothes I buy and eat off all the dishes.  I’ll be looking for areas to improve.  Just enjoy the stuff.

My horoscope for June reminded me that to enjoy and experience the abundance in our lives we need to celebrate it by sharing it.  Then we open up space in our lives for more to flow in.

I read this blog post today about bouncing back.  The writer talks about a group of young MBA students he was working with who were developing a presentation and working and working on it – basically they were going to iterate it to death.  He discovered that they were afraid of failure.  They wanted to make it perfect so they didn’t have to deal with any potential “bad stuff”.  Even if it meant not delivering it.

And it struck me because my niece said a while back something about, what’s the point of getting a university education, you graduate with $50k in debt and no guarantee of the decent job you might need to pay the debt off.

And I get that, it’s a tough decision to make.  I was the first person to get a degree in my family, there was absolutely no assumption that I was going to take that road, it was all my choice.  And while it’s worked out ok for me, I know it’s not simple.  I have kids and understand that there will be some tough decisions ahead, mostly theirs with plenty of my unwanted advice thrown in.

I’m reading The Outliers and although i’m only on Chapter 4, I can see that he chips away at our belief that successful people are just naturally good at stuff.  He points out the importance of people’s birthdays and 10,00 hours of practice to get good at things.  He looks at the timing of trends and the backgrounds people had and their good people skills or social intelligence.  All things that help us down the road to success, or make us become janitors.  But I think his point is that we do have innate abilities or interests.

That’s why the challenge is to know ourselves.  Sure you can look at occupations and decide you want to be a tax auditor or a welder.  But it’s kind of ass backwards.   

It’s a better start to know things like whether we like a structured or loose environment.  Whether we want to work with our hands or our heads.  Whether we want to work with people or put our head down and git ‘er done.  And if you want to work with people, is it as equals on a team or as an authority figure like a teacher? 

We need to know if we are Type A or B.  Do we prefer to work with Words or Numbers or Things? What are we motivated by – things like money or time off?  We should know if our career is a means to an end (pay the bills, get a retirement plan), or an end in itself (you love it enough that the pay is almost secondary, almost).

Once you know that kind of stuff, then you can look at an occupation and understand the “fit”.  Or talk to someone who does the job and at least ask the right questions.

Because a university education can go beyond giving you the potential qualifications for the job you think you want.  For me, I took five years to do a degree.  That’s because I took a semester off to work at the CBC, I also worked at the student paper and had a boyfriend and multiple part-time jobs.  I was too busy to ever take a full course load. But the university experience gave me the time to grow up and learn some skills around organizations, people and getting the work done.

I also learned to write, the skill that got me my first real job.  I was temping to make money before a trip to Europe.  I was at a software company and the woman I worked with couldn’t write her way out of a paper bag (2 year certificate from college) and when my boss (Masters in Creative Writing) found out that I could, he made me an offer and I took the job.

But it was more than that.  High tech companies tend to be a bit more free-wheeling, forward thinking and less conservative and that fits my personality.  Often they’re meritocracies and that fits my “get it done” mentality and my single university degree.  They also move fast and I like that, I never get bored, I surf on the changes with the best of them.  So it was a “fit” in ways that I would never have known before I got into one. 

It helps to see your path as more than just book learning.  You have so many more options in life if you develop more savvy than just regurgitating stuff you’ve read.  And when you can expand your view and see the process more creatively (ie, try stuff and see if it fits) it can help reduce the fear of failure that kept the MBAs from actually delivering their presentation.  You can take the stance that “I’m just trying stuff”.  And then your skills go beyond getting a good mark on a test.  At least that’s what I’ll tell my kids when it comes time to make the hard, and expensive decision.

I heard a wise man this a.m..  I’ve started listening to Oprah’s Soul Series podcasts while i’m commuting.  I download them for free from iTunes and then load them onto something portable.   The podcasts give me something more useful to do than hear Rihanna’s S&M tune for the 5 kjillionth time.  On this morning’s Oprah was interviewing  Jenny Phillips who created the Dhamma Brothers film and book about guys in a maximum security prison who’ve done Vipassana meditation. 

That’s the serious bootcamp meditation program where you sit for 10 hours a day for 10 days, yikes.  I’ve always wanted to do it, but thankfully my life hasn’t let me go on sabbatical for that long because i’m not sure i could pull it off.

Oprah was interviewing Grady, who is serving 3 life sentences and he was talking about how he’s changed overtime.  He was talking about how reactive he used to be, reacting to everything that happens to him.  He said the hardest thing to learn is that the only permanent thing in our life is change. 

And he figured that out during the third day of Vipassana and now he depends on it.  He says, now I tell myself “Give it a Minute”.  And before he knows it, the situation has changed and his urge to react has passed.  Sometimes he focuses on his breath to help him get through the minute.

I often say to myself, This Too Shall Pass.  But that sounds so ominous and serious, i’m going to switch to “Give it a Minute”.  Thanks to Grady, it’s my new mantra.

It’s been tough starting  the new job.  I’m used to knowing everything at work.  Being the go-to person and knowing everyone.  And instead I know nothing.  I know no one, and I’m pretty much useless.  It’s been a while since i started a job so i forget.  It freaks me out and makes me feel like i should give back my paycheque. 

The transition has been tough for my family too so there have been times when I’m so uncomfortable I want to crawl out of my skin.

I was reading Passionate Presence and it reminded me of “Just This”.  And I started thinking about just that. 

Like when we get uncomfortable we often tell ourselves grand stories about how our lives suck and people are jerks.  But if you can remind yourself it’s Just This, just the emotion you’re feeling in the present moment, then sometimes that makes it a bit more manageable. 

It’s not ALL these horrible things and ALL these awful people making my life miserable.  It’s Just This – me feeling frustrated at this moment.

Sometimes the emotions feel so powerful it’s like we’re going to drown.  But no one ever died from having an emotion.  And they actually shift and change pretty quickly. 

I might be squirming with discomfort right now but then I get distracted by something, or the emotion changes or I start talking to someone and before I know it, the whole scene is different. 

It’s Just This. Just This emotion, right now, and in the next moment it might be something different.  Or not.

Because when we sign up for Life, we get the whole set, a palette of emotions.  And as humans we get to experience each one at sometime in our life.  We don’t get to pick and choose the happy ones, we get to sample them all at some point. 

But the part we can count on is that we won’t feel them all at once.  It’ll be Just This, and then Just This, and on and on. 

So here I was squirming in discomfort.  Feeling frustrated and feeling fearful.  But when I was able to remind myself that it’s Just This, I was able to focus in on simply what was going on.  Not catastrophizing (I’ll lose my job i’m so useless!), not telling stories (this is huge!  this is awful!) but bringing it down to the one thing i was feeling in the moment.  

And really feeling it.  And then letting it pass.  And now it’s in the past.

I couldn’t sleept this a.m., i was awake thinking of a bunch of things that have been stressing me out lately.  So i got up and did some yoga.  Tried to get some kinks out of my back and shoulders.  Tried to get some feeling back into my hips.  And i settled into Childs Pose and thought about how it’s such a great pose for surrender.

Childs Pose doesn’t have to be surrendering TO anyone or thing, it can just be surrendering.  I’ve been noticing lately that I need to do that more often. 

You know, the time when you just can’t ram the square peg into the round hole any longer?  When you just have to stop stressing and striving and fighting and trying to make the whole world into the image that’s in your head? 

It’s the time when you say, you know what?  I give.  Uncle.  I’m going to let go of this and this.  I can’t fix it all or change it all. 

I will continue to do my stuff, but let go of how it all turns out.  Because I simply can’t control it all.

And that can be tough for a control freak.  But when i finally get there?  i feel my shoulders drop 3 inches from my ears.  And my body seems to sigh all on its own.  And I instantly feel a bit more peaceful. 

It turns out it was all in my head.  I had made the decision that i needed to take responsibility for fixing all this stuff and it turns out i can just as easily unmake it.   And if i can turn the ” HAVE TO” noise in my head down, I’ll notice that the peace and calm are hiding inside too.  

One of my favourite kid’s books is Who Will Tuck Me In Tonight.  Because I get to do a lot of different voices for one, but also because I just love Whooly the little lamb.  He’s a tough little dude who knows what he needs. 

When the story opens it’s time for bed and his Mom’s not around.  So the other farm animals take turns trying to do the bedtime ritual and fail miserably.   The pig tries to feed him yucky pig snacks, the horse tucks him in too tight and so on.

Whooly gets pretty cheesed off by all this and isn’t afraid to tell them.  Finally he says, “Enough!”.  And you know, that’s when his Mom comes in.  She does the bedtime ritual perfectly and life is good for Whooly as he snuggles in for the night. 

I’ve noticed that for me too, if I can get to the “Enough!” part i get the support I need.  Probably because i’m too busy stressing, striving and fighting to ask for what i need.  

Sometimes my stiff upper lip is *so* stiff that i can’t utter the words, “Enough!  This really stinks and i need to do it differently!”  But if I can get to the “enough” part then i find out I have enough and i am enough to get through it.

I’m back working downtown after a long hiatus of being in the ‘burbs.  It’s weird, I have to get used to jay walking again.  In the ‘burbs you can get yourself killed doing that.  Downtown, it’s the only way to get somewhere fast.  And you can pretend you’re a Montrealer.

 I also have to get used to the wind tunnels in downtown Halifax.  The one today just about knocked me down.  At least it didn’t knock me up.

I’m also getting used to the panhandlers again.  After the first lunch-time walk i dumped a bunch of change in my pocket so I’d be ready.  I of course removed the loonies and toonies first (one and two dollar coins to you non-Canadians), I mean c’mon, I gotta feed my kids too. 

I gave change to the first couple of panhandlers and then I saw Him.  He’s my favourite of them all and I haven’t seen him in years.  He’s a slight bald man with a beard.  He’s got some challenges, you can’t really tell what he says.  He just had his hat out, but at other times he busks. 

His busking performance is unique.  He strums a guitar with three strings that’s completely out of tune.  And he sings.  Nothing really melodic per se, and not really anything with lyrics, but he belts it out.  I used to give him money every time I saw him because he’s my hero.  And now it looks like I’ve have that chance again.

You know how they say, dance like no ones watching?  He sings like no one’s listening.  And he makes me think.  I think of all the stoopid things I get self conscious about.  I think of how hard I am on myself.  And he’s just doing his thing.  At the highest volume possible, for nickels.  Maybe I’ll put some toonies in my other pocket just for Him.